The Rose of Sharon
by Mari Luyken
Summary: J.Tu. Kathryn and Tuvok visit an uninhabited planet.


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The Rose of Sharon

Marié Luyken

Code: J/Tu

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: The characters belong to Paramount. That's all.

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THE ROSE OF SHARON

The noise in her head was deafening; alternating between an insistent buzz and a clamor of cymbals that caused her to slump down again where she tried to lift herself. She lay, exhausted and dizzy from the effort of lifting her head. It felt like lead - heavy, swollen, and when she turned to look around her, she gave a groan. She felt disconnected from her body, her arms and legs disengaged and misshapen. There were a few blinding flashes as she tried to blink, and the blur of a second ago replaced by what appeared to her like dust sifting down. 

Dust. Sand. Debris? 

Somewhere, light streamed in and gave the dust a sandy-gray hue. It whirled up in eddies then sank quietly and created a film on the surface where she lay, half on her side. She twitched her nose as she inhaled some of the dust. For a few seconds after the noise subsided, it was quiet, like a pause before something else was about to happen. 

Her body remembered.

Pause...

The pains when it came exploded inside her and spread like angry tongues of fire through her body. From the burst in her head, it traveled to every limb and organ. She was vaguely aware that something heavy rested on her lower body. She cried out in agony. She gave another cry when she tried to move her arm. A series of low moans escaped her as the stabs of pain attacked, relentlessly seeking out the uninjured areas of her body where they could cause more damage and cheat her into thinking she was dying... For a few seconds, mercifully, she passed out. When she came to again, she was lying in the same position but feeling more disoriented. 

Where else did the stabs originate? She tried to think. Something was missing. No, not just something. Things. Like what and why and how many.

She couldn't orientate herself, and realized that she must be concussed. Another movement; her eyes filled with tears as her breath was knocked away. For a second there was a sensation of floating. Did she pass out again? No... Not when the pain seethed in her. Her lower body... Her legs...pelvis, maybe. The was a sharp burn in her chest. She lay still, relief only marginal. It was better than moving her arm... 

She could try again. Try. The images she could detect in her peripheral vision were blurred, taking form very slowly. There was a weight on her legs that intensified the pain tenfold. Only then she noticed that part of her body was covered with a piece of metal. 

Bulkhead? Console? What? 

It took a while to connect images and names of objects to form something coherent - a thought that was rational - like where she was or what happened. For a few more hazy moments she tried to fix her eyes on some spot in the interior until she could see the weak flickering of console lights and panels.

Shuttle.

Bulkhead. Conn. Consoles. Light panels. Seat. Shuttle. 

Crash...

Then she remembered. 

"Tuvok...?" His name fled from her dry, trembling lips as she remembered that he had been with her.

Where was Tuvok?

With her uninjured left arm - she flexed her fingers in a lethargic movement and stared through the blur at them - she managed to hoist herself to a sitting position. Kathryn cried out as flames of pain raged through her lower body, but she bit her teeth and struggled to shift the sheet of shattered bulkhead from her legs. Beads of perspiration had broken out on her forehead, as much from the supreme effort of lifting as the tormenting flames that ravaged her. Long seconds she lay after her legs were free. They looked...bent, contorted to grotesque position in marionette-style oddity. 

"Tuvok..." 

There was no answer. It was quiet in the shuttle.

"Tuvok," she called again, looking around her. In the darkened section of the shuttle she couldn't make out anything except the shadowy bulk that lay propped against the aft section, in a kind of stillness that had Kathryn calling his name again. 

Waves of nausea overcame her and she gasped for air as she dragged herself on her good arm towards where Tuvok lay. Her legs trailed lifelessly behind her. Pausing only long enough to catch her breath, she heaved painfully forward, until at length she reached the lifeless form of her Chief of Security. Overcome by exhaustion, she slumped against him. Several minutes later she regained consciousness, and her first sensation of awareness was that Tuvok had not stirred. 

"Commander..." she bit out, trying to keep her eyes open, alert. She raised her hand to touch his cheek, tears welling in her eyes when she felt him flinch. 

Then she shook him. He moaned. He had been half lying half sitting against the hull, his hands hanging limply at his sides. Kathryn turned her head to look around her, and the section containing the emergency med-kit seemed a light-year away. She dragged herself towards it again, only to cry in frustration when she noticed the destroyed panels with its contents spilled or damaged. Her left arm looked like a rag doll's - useless. She knew a bone must be protruding; the point jutted ominously against the sleeve of her uniform. 

"Oh, dear God..." she murmured as she made her way back to the gravely injured Tuvok. "Please let them come soon..." she prayed, her lips moving in soundless supplication. 

Tuvok groaned again as she reached him, and when he opened his eyes, they already appeared glazed to her. 

__

He's dying... she thought as she watched him wince when she slumped against him again. _He's dying... if Voyager doesn't come soon..._

She fought down the sudden fear that gripped her. They were alone here... Alone. This was an uninhabited world. Routine mission to check for shore leave possibilities. Tuvok... She had wanted to bring Tom or Harry along on the mission. Tuvok offered...

"Captain..." 

It was a hoarse, guttural sound that issued from him, and Kathryn went cold, her pain forgotten momentarily when she heard another sound just after he spoke. It emanated from his chest, a gurgling sound that bubbled so that his green blood oozed frothily from his mouth. He was bleeding internally; he was in the throes of death...

"Don't...talk, Tuvok," she commanded. "You have internal bleeding..."

"I have..." he labored. She lay half across his lap, unable to lift herself as she felt her own strength giving in at last. She forced herself to wakefulness and tried to force the pain to the edge of her conscious, but it fought equally tenaciously to get a hold on her entire body. She gave a low moan again. The interior of the shuttle started spinning alarmingly; she must have passed out for a few seconds. With great effort she opened her eyes to stare at Tuvok. His dark face looked ashen; blood trickled from the side of his mouth and stained his uniform. 

"Conserve your strength, Tuvok. They will find us..."

"It...will...be...too...late..." he labored, blood oozing with every word. "Too...late..." he repeated heavily, then he closed his eyes again, giving a little sigh. The gurgle in his chest kept up a damning rhythm of pending death. Kathryn wanted to raise herself to shake him awake, but her body had gone into convulsions as the pain jabbed at her, and seconds later she lay gasping for breath. Finally she managed:

"Tuvok... I - " 

She wanted to tell him something. Something important - something that had weighed her down so much in the last year. They had been friends so long. For so long he had been her moral compass, the only sane thing in a sea of madness. He kept her from going mad. And now it would be too late. Too late to tell him...

"Captain, I...may not live..."

"Don't talk like that, Tuvok. It's not like you to imagine a worse case scenario..." she said, her voice sounding suddenly a little stronger before she gave a deep shudder again. 

"I...know...what I know, Captain..." he breathed heavily.

"Please, keep awake, Tuvok..."

"In a few minutes... I - "

"No...please. Don't die on me, Tuvok. Keep awake, please..."

"There is one thing I will do, Captain," Tuvok gasped. 

Kathryn wondered what he meant, then watched as his hand came up, a hand that had lain lifeless beside him. Long fingers trembled as they touched her temple. The movement was labored, perhaps indicative of Tuvok's extreme trauma, yet there was something surreal in the way the hand had come up - slowly, as if in a priestly ritual - and descended on her face as if it were a dove of peace settling gently on a bough. Kathryn's eyes closed, and a single tear squeezed through her closed lids. 

"No!" she whimpered. 

She was afraid he'd know what was in her heart. A foolish, tiresome organ that betrayed her the moment his fingers touched her; that would tell him how she dared to feel what she should never feel. Her heart would tell him how she battled ceaselessly to keep him from knowing.

"Only my memories of you...Kathryn - "

"Tuvok...don't, please..."

"I give you..."

A deep sob escaped her as she felt his fingers press the points against her temple.

"No, please..."

"If you are to understand...one day..."

"Don't, Tuvok, my friend..."

"It will be your truth..." 

"Truth, Tuvok?" Kathryn moaned as a wave of pain wracked her body again, before she stilled. Her head rested on Tuvok's lap. His body she knew, must be as battered and broken as hers. He was bleeding internally and very soon... 

She closed her eyes, Tuvok's fingers still resting gentle as the whisper of a breeze against her temple. She felt her old, old rage melting away from her.

"Yes," he croaked, his voice laced with pain. It was uneven, hoarse, and he was barely able to control it. "Truth..."

There was a slight pause. She was afraid. What truth? That he knew how she felt? Sensed it whenever they were in each other's company? He was always so impassive, how could he know anything? What she felt had become so much a part of her that it had been easy to let those feelings exist in a sort of symbiotic harmony with the rest of her. Tuvok was...bonded. 

Bonded... There were moral obligations, protocol and personal dictates.

"Come with me, Kathryn..."

Her eyes had gone wide, she wanted to run away. Where? Her body was broken. Where? They crashed. Where? They were dying in a place that would become their lonely sepulchre. 

Tuvok's fingers pressed deeper. Kathryn gave a gentle sigh as she succumbed and her head relaxed in Tuvok's lap. Instantly, she felt a change, as if her conscious thoughts were suffused with something that was soft, swirling. It felt peaceful. For a second she wondered at it before she realized that her pain had subsided. No, she thought, it hadn't. It was all still there, ravaging her, but also not...there. Tuvok... She swirled maddeningly for a second into a vortex of clouds and stars and nebulas before suddenly, she was surrounded by a burst of brightness. 

She heard Tuvok's voice. 

"Be at peace, Kathryn. My thoughts to your thoughts... "

**

Kathryn Janeway, her light blue dress lapping gently at her ankles as the breeze played in the skirts, looked around her. It was an alien world, not unlike the many dry planets she had seen in her lifetime traveling amongst the stars. 

She had never been here, but it felt familiar to her, as if she knew the place intimately. A thought - an unlikely possibility if she knew that it could happen only in dreams - occurred to her: could she be in someone's dream? How was that possible? In what she knew was an illogical and completely irrational motion, she turned to look behind her, as if she expected to see something or someone there. There was nothing, except mountains in the distance that didn't appear blue-gray as her experience on Earth was, but stark orange-brown, like red dust. She realized it looked that way because the sun was setting just behind them, giving the mountains that deep red glow. She knew this place and in her there was a deep belief that she had been here many, many times.

She looked about her. There was nothing. She was alone on this dry plain.

"Kathryn..."

She swung around again, and wondered where he suddenly appeared from. He hadn't been there a moment ago when she looked behind her.

"Tuvok?"

Then she knew where she was.

"You are on Vulcan, Kathryn," Tuvok said, a smile on his face. 

Kathryn frowned. She had never seen Tuvok smile. Still, her heart pounded for a few seconds as she took in the beauty of his face. His face lost that sternness. He looked... transformed. Different and yet...so Vulcan. His smile remained as if he enjoyed seeing her confusion. Confusion it was as Kathryn moved slowly towards him. 

She reached him and placed her hand in the palm of his own outstretched hand. It surprised her that she did that. Why wasn't she afraid? What was she supposed to be wary of? Did any parameters exist here? 

"Do not be afraid, Kathryn," Tuvok commanded, still with the smile that lit up his usually austere features.

"If you can tell me why I shouldn't be, Tuvok," she replied as she moved into his embrace. She felt his arms enfold her, a gentle embrace that made her feel comfortable, unafraid, eager to seek his caress. 

They stood like that for a few minutes, looking at the horizon, where the mountains lay like kings in the russet sunset. Kathryn's hair lifted in the breeze and for a second she felt his lips press into her hair. Her eyes closed.

"Tell me, Tuvok," she said again as she allowed the rush of emotion to reach the surface.

"You are in my world, Kathryn..."

"I know that, Tuvok. Tell me why I'm here, standing in your arms when we know that - that you are bonded..."

She looked up at him and his eyes met hers. It was a warm regard, such as she had never seen before. His eyes were alive, alive! It touched her deeply. 

"Close your eyes, Kathryn and look..." he whispered.

She did so and in the next instant, she saw two figures lying on the floor of the crashed shuttle. The woman lay with her head in the other's lap, and his fingers were splayed across her cheek, one finger resting against her temple.

She opened her eyes suddenly, distraught at what she had just seen. She and Tuvok...were they dead? Did they move outside their bodies? It couldn't be... Tuvok was melding with her. Melding.

What she desired to know was...why?

"Why?" she asked as a tear rolled down her cheek. She gave a sigh as Tuvok used his thumb to brush the tear from her cheek.

"I know what you desire, Kathryn..."

"I tried to keep it from you, Tuvok. You belong to another. I can only have you in my dreams..."

"Yes..."

"Then why do you do this?"

"Did I not tell you that I wish for you to become the caretaker of all my memories of you?"

"We have been friends long, Tuvok. Many years..."

"I know, but the memories I speak of, you do not know. They are where you stand right now. A part of my soul, if you like, which I reserved for you alone, Kathryn."

Her eyes filled with a warm glow while a smile hovered at the corners of her mouth. Tuvok's hand came up and he touched her cheek in a soft caress. For a moment his fingers rested there and Kathryn's eyes closed. She heard the words of a faraway, old, old song: "you are the world to me..." and knew then what Tuvok meant.

Her eyes opened again. He saw in them the knowledge dawning.

"Yes..." he whispered hoarsely, before he touched her cheek again.

*

"Tuvok!" 

"What is it, my love?" Tuvok asked. The waves collapsed on the sand then ambled lazily forward towards his feet. Little tongues lapped at his feet and Tuvok curled his toes as the cold water touched him. 

Kathryn came running down from the dune to join him. Tuvok thought he had never seen anyone so beautiful. The sun was behind her and it turned the tints in her hair bright golden-bronze. Her hair bobbed about her face and she was laughing as she tumbled towards him. Her dress - the blue one with the flared skirt she favored so - danced about her ankles.

__

She is a flower. A beautiful red, exotic flower...

"What did you say?" she asked him when she stood next to him, quite breathless from the exercise.

"Did I speak, sweetest Kathryn?"

"You know, Tuvok, I liked you better when you reined your emotions and exercised extreme discipline to keep others from sensing what you felt - "

"I am still Vulcan, Kathryn. Only here, where the two of us exist, do I let you into my heart and deepest desires."

"Naturally."

"Oh, yes, my love," Tuvok replied as he took her hand and they started walking along the water's edge, towards the rocky outcrops that served as a promontory.

"Now, what was it you said about a flower?"

"You know me well, Kathryn," he admitted as he squeezed her hand gently. 

"Here you can be almost...human, Tuvok. You said so yourself when we first came here, remember?"

"I can show you what I feel, Althaea..."

Kathryn paused mid-stride, looked up at him and frowned. Tuvok gave her his most engaging smile. He had pulled her a little away from the edge of the water, digging their toes into the dry sand. She raised her hand to tame her hair away from her face. Her lips were parted and Tuvok gave an involuntary move forward, as if he wanted to kiss those red lips. Almost as an afterthought he stood back again, smiling again at the way he was unable to resist Kathryn. 

"Althaea?" she whispered.

"Like the hibiscus that grows on Earth," he started. "When you came running down that dune, you reminded me of that flower."

Kathryn's eyes narrowed. Tuvok grinned. His Kathryn was turning over information in her head. Before long she would - "

"The Rose of Sharon..." she said softly, reflectively, "it's in the Song of Songs..." 

"Yes. You reminded me of the Rose of Sharon, Kathryn, my Althaea..."

"You are very romantic, Tuvok."

"Only here in this world of my fantasy, Kathryn. I can be what I desire, and I can desire what I want..."

"That's a paradox. Tuvok, you are full of surprises."

"In this world you can know all of my emotions, my love.

"I know them, Tuvok."

"I can tell you the mountains of Vulcan are beautiful, you are beautiful,. I can tell you I miss you when you're away from me."

"And I can be your only love."

"Rarest flower of the desert."

"Really?"

"I told you I can be romantic."

She rose on tiptoe and rewarded him for being so romantic.

"I know," she said a breathless second later, "it's why I love you."

**

They were in her ready room. Tuvok stood in front of her desk while Kathryn rambled on about inanities. It was his birthday, with no one to share it. No one knew it. When Kathryn turned to him, she held a cake in her hand. Much like Neelix's Jabalian Fudge Cake, only smaller. There was one candle on it.

How could he tell her of what he felt? How would she react if he told her that he "felt*? 

__

Show no emotion, Tuvok. No feelings. Feel nothing! Feel nothing!

"Happy 100th, Tuvok."

Kathryn Janeway's voice broke into this tableau. It may have seemed curious, not entirely logical, but the scene within a scene within the meld did not disturb him. 

"Tuvok? You were dispassionate as always. You thought up a useful excuse for accepting the burning candle on the cake..."

"I had to make you believe it, Kathryn. What kind of Vulcan would I be if I could not control myself? Exercise rigid control when all that I desired was to thank you warmly, and kiss you?"

"I understood it, Tuvok. Why do you apologize?" 

"I sensed then how you felt..."

"All this time?"

"Yes. And in the corner of my heart where you reigned, I wanted to take you in my arms."

"If I had known."

"What would the crew have thought?"

Kathryn smiled at his words. It was true. She could picture just how outrageous it would have appeared had they been seen kissing passionately. Captain Janeway caught fraternizing, and with Tuvok... 

"Yes, imagine that."

"So, will you let me thank you properly for thinking of me on my birthday?"

She moved into his arms that locked around her. He bent down. His eyes were dark orbs of fire and passion. He kissed her, a long lingering kiss that had her gasping at the end of it.

"Flower..." he whispered hotly when he lifted his head again and looked at her red, parted lips...

**

"Kathryn! Don't go, please!"

She was running along the dunes, away from him. Her hair flew about her face, and once she looked back. He could see the wildness in her eyes, her obvious extreme distress that he knew, carried with it shame at what she had resorted to. He had often had this memory of her, Kathryn running from her true feelings...

He ran after her, and caught her at the top of the dune. The sea appeared majestic, shining deep blue waters that he didn't notice now as he stood in front of her. He took her hand and made her look at him. She tried to look away, then it burst from her.

"I can't anymore, Tuvok. I can't hide it anymore. It's tearing me up... I am undone, undone!" she wailed. Then she broke away from him and ran a few steps before she tumbled. He reached her again and pulled her up, placing his hands on her shoulders.

"I understand, Kathryn. I understand your need to find an outlet such as you have sought - "

Her eyes were two shooting flames.

"Precisely, Tuvok! You understand too much. I can't stand it. Condemn me, for the love of God!"

"You are alone and lonely, in need of tenderness. You need a mate - "

"Mate!" she agreed searingly. "Yes! Someone to screw celibate Kathryn Janeway who is in need of some love and tenderness." 

"Why do you speak like that? Michael was that for you?"

"Yes! No! Now go away. Leave me alone. Michael was - "

" - a replacement?"

"Photonic fuck - " Kathryn said as she turned and glared defiantly at Tuvok, her eyes filling with angry tears. 

"Do not speak like that, Kathryn. It is unworthy of you - "

"What do you want me to say? I crave passion and want to be loved for myself? That I need *you* more than my very life? That I can't have you because I can't have a relationship on board for one and secondly, Tuvok whom I desire is a married man. How can I allow myself such a pained luxury of loving you when it's all so futile? Do you even kn-"

Before she could finish, Tuvok had pulled her into his arms. Kathryn had little time to be shocked or surprised as his lips descended on hers in a searing kiss. Her arms encircled his neck a second later, and she melted into him, drowning for a few wondrous moments in the swirling desire that engulfed her. 

When he released her finally, there was a deep, dark and burning look in his eyes. His lips were parted and he breathed in shallow gasps. His face was suddenly so alive, every muscle relaxed, the old austerity gone. He looked like he wanted to...cry?"

"Tuvok?" she whispered in a very low tone.

"What you need, Kathryn, I too, need..."

"Tuvok? she asked again, looking momentarily confused before her eyes became warm again. A tear rolled down her cheek.

"In the deepest recesses of my heart, my love, where no one has entry, not even my bonded mate, you roam there. You are there, Kathryn, where I can allow myself the luxury, as you say, of loving you..."

"I did not know. I did not know..." Kathryn said in an awed voice. 

"Play, Tuvok. Play for me, please..."

Tuvok lifted the Vulcan lute and his fingers stroked the strings in a caress that made Kathryn want to cry. The music filled the darkened room, and Tuvok was sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the fireplace. Kathryn reclined on a rug with a deep, shaggy pile. Tuvok smiled. He knew Kathryn still only tolerated Vulcan music, but she loved to hear him play the lute. Right now she looked like a contented cat. She glowed in the aftermath of their lovemaking. 

"It's beautiful..." she murmured sleepily.

"It is sleep inducing, Kathryn," he said soberly.

"Now you know I'm only humoring you, Tuvok."

"Fine, no more lovemaking - "

"Don't you dare!"

" - for the next hour..."

***

"It will always remind me of you, Althaea," Tuvok said as he pinned the orange and red tinged hibiscus behind her ear. The thin straps of her floral dress rounded off the picture of the idyllic South Seas Terran island. She wore espadrilles, and she stood petit against his lean length.

His hand caressed the smooth alabaster skin of her neck, and Kathryn's eyes closed at his touch.

She felt precious here, in Tuvok's idyll, where they could love, untrammeled by protocols and moral strictures. She gave a sigh of happiness, basking in his love. Tuvok was passionate, but mostly, she loved his air of serenity. It washed over her, infusing her with his peace. He was open, unafraid to express his feelings...

"I am the rose of Sharon..."

"You are indeed my flower, Althaea."

*

"Now - you - know - Kathryn," the words broke from Tuvok. His fingers still rested against Kathryn's cheek and temple.

"I didn't know the depths of what was in your heart, Tuvok. Forgive me."

"You have pain?"

"Not much, Tuvok. You have taken it upon you, I know."

"Always...you have been Althaea..."

"Yes..."

"I - am - near - the - end..." he gasped painfully. 

"Do not go, Tuvok."

"My memories...they are yours..." he struggled on. "I - have - peace..."

"Fight."

"No more...Althaea..."

Kathryn slumped into his lap, exhausted, the pain only a dull throb beneath the surface. She drifted, dreamed dreams of Tuvok, of Voyager and the crew. Mostly she saw the times she and Tuvok had been together, mostly she saw the incredible images Tuvok had shown her in the meld. Only vaguely she was aware that his hand was still on her cheek. 

When had it become quiet in the broken shuttle? When the wind outside had died down? When did her conscious register that there were no sounds, that even the last of the flickering console lights had gone out? Was it in one of the spells when she had been lucid, awake? 

When? 

Something was missing, and she struggled to think what it was that could fill her with a quiet dread and at the same time make her want to close her eyes forever. A peace ascended on them.

"Tuvok?"

He didn't stir this time. 

The gurgling sound in his chest that had marked the beat of time all the while they had lain there was no more.

Still. Terrifying quietness.

"Tuvok..."

Kathryn Janeway closed her eyes.

***

Tom Paris, Harry Kim and Noah Lessing stood looking at the two figures. Tuvok sat propped up against the bulkhead. Captain Janeway lay, her head resting against the Vulcan. Tuvok's head was bent forward as if he were looking into the Captain's face. His eyes were open, and the absence of a death glaze in them gave the impression he was still alive. 

The Captain's eyes were closed, although Tuvok's fingers still pressed against her temple and cheek. Her face was stained with dirt, but they could see the trail of a tear streak. While they were looking, another tear rolled from the Captain's cheek. They noticed something else too. Something that seemed at odds with the aftermath of the crash, in stark contrast with the terrible wreckage and their desert-like surroundings where the soil proved too inhospitable to hosting plant life.

It was Harry who spoke.

"As Tuvok would say: curious."

"Indeed."

Tom's voice was tinged with sadness and awe. 

In Kathryn Janeway's hand she held a flower - a red flower with three bright green leaves. The leaves had three lobes and it appeared as if the flower nestled on the bed of leaves. Harry looked at Noah Lessing, who raised an eyebrow before he spoke.

"Hardy flower, capable of existing in most adverse conditions..."

"Eh?"

"It is the Rose of Sharon."

**

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THE END

e-mail: [mluyken@yahoo.com][1]

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   [1]: mailto:mluyken@yahoo.com



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